


A Handful of Love

by MagnusLightwoodAlecBane



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: A little, Angst, Character Study, Fluff, Hands, Introspection, M/M, Magic, POV Magnus Bane, Slightly angsty but not that much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 07:07:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19043620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagnusLightwoodAlecBane/pseuds/MagnusLightwoodAlecBane
Summary: Magnus had always loved his hands.





	A Handful of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I just love Magnus Bane so much.   
> This idea had been swimming around in my thoughts for a while and I finally found a way to write it down.   
> Enjoy!

Magnus had always loved his hands.

  


He loved the soft golden brown color, the filed nails at the end of the long fingers, the way his skin folded in little creases around his knuckles. He loved the elegance he moved them with and the strength they held within. The magic that sparked out of his fingertips, blue or red, soft or threatening, protecting or dangerous. 

  


The various rings weren’t just decoration, they were there to emphasize the characteristics of his hands. Every single ring adorning his fingers was chosen with precision. Firstly, he had the initials rings, the M and the B. He always wore at least one of them. 

  


They represented his identity. He had picked his name with care and consideration. It embodied everything he ever was. Magnus, great and important. Bane, a torment, destruction itself. Combined they made a great destruction. Magnus Bane. He saw himself in the way he named himself. He was young, but not dumb. He had been afraid of himself but also intrigued by the power at his hands. 

  


He chose the other rings depending on his mood. Whenever he felt vulnerable but didn’t want to show it, he put up walls, an armor if you will. And what’s better for an armor than metal?  Not a lot of skin could be seen on his fingers. He wore an abundance of rings, covering himself up. Some of them were big, caught the eye, others were special in the sense that they were sharp. Dangerous.

He had that one ring, the one for his pointer finger, with the spiked tip that almost looked like a weapon. 

  


However, he didn’t only use rings as a defense mechanism. Some of them were complementary with his elegance. His cat-like movements when he practised magic were calculated at first, but with time they became engraved in his mind and the previously thought-out movements were reduced to muscle memory. His sophistication became part of him. 

  


A ruby red stone inside a square silver frame, thin bands made of the same material, rings with patterns and others with complicated swirls and spirals. They showed his decadence, his wealth. Magnus Bane liked pretty things, sue him. 

  


Jewelry wasn’t the only decoration he used on his hands. Just as carefully selected as his outfits, with just as much meaning as his rings, he did his makeup. Colored streaks in his hair and complementary nail polish. Sometimes the paint was colorful, playful, innocent. At times when he felt happy, he expressed himself like it. Other times he used color as a way to  _ make  _ himself happy. Maybe the color would chase away the deep, dark grey, grim feelings.

  


If he wanted to show his power or if he wanted to intimidate people, he chose black. Simple, yet elegant, dark and powerful. A lot of mystery hid in the dark, it brought fear and promised bad things to happen. 

  


There was a time where Magnus loved his hands. Until they didn’t feel like him anymore. 

He tried to cover it up at first, wearing just as many rings, rubbing them in with lotion, hand-painting his nails instead of with magic. It became too much. Every time he did a simple, mundane task like that, he was confronted with the cruel reality.

  


His delicate golden skin was now cracked at the knuckles from fighting. Scratches and tiny wounds now decorated his fingers where the rings should have. The nails he took care of so well were sharp and uneven because he bit them off when feeling anxious. His nail polish chipped off and he couldn’t bring himself to fix it anymore. The blue sparks were gone. The ultimate accessory. The power behind his hands, the beauty, his identity. It was all gone. 

  


He hated his hands. He hated what they used to be but weren’t anymore. What they represented. They reminded him of what he didn’t have. 

  


Alexander helped him love them again. In the morning, he pressed soft kisses to his fingers, played with them and handled them with care. The hard calluses of Alec’s hands were now met with equally hard parts in Magnus’. Alec didn’t care. He held Magnus’ hands in his as if they were the most precious gift he had ever received. 

  


Alec bought him more lotion, with sandalwood scent and massaged it in, while silently wiping off Magnus’ tears that had fallen from his cheeks. Alec painted his nails. Not black, but not colorful either. A very dark blue, leaning on purple. He let Magnus put on his rings himself. He knew what they meant to him, that they gave him strength. If Alec would do that for him, it would destroy the little sense of independence he had left. 

  


Magnus learned to care for his hands again. They were flawed now, devoid of power, but they could still look sophisticated. 

  


It made sense that when Magnus regained his magic, his own, real magic, the first thing he did was admire his hands. Behind the tiny mistakes in his nail polish was now real strength again. It was the first thing he fixed. He magicked his nails to be flawless, his skin to be healed and his hands to be soft like they were before. 

  


They felt like him again. They felt real, they showed no trace of what had happened and when he looked at them now, he wouldn’t be confronted again. The only thing paining him was his memories.

  


Alec never stopped caring for them. He still gave him hand-massages, still played with his fingers, still painted his nails sometimes - even though Magnus always magicked out the mistakes. Yet he never put on his rings. He twirled them around and touched them, admired them, but never slipped them over or off his fingers.

  


It wasn’t long before Magnus found out why. He had simply been waiting for that one special ring. The one he would never take off. The one on his left ring finger. Alec put on that ring with the promise of forever. His rings had a different meaning now. Next to their power and elegance, they now stood for love. Eternal, all-consuming love.

  


Magnus would forever love his hands. 


End file.
